On a quiet Wednesday night in Martin Place, Sydney, long after the corporate towers have emptied and the city’s tempo has softened, a different kind of gathering begins.
Trestle tables stretch across the square, lined with hot food, fresh bread, sweet treats, tea, coffee and, in winter, steaming soup. Volunteers move with purpose. There is laughter. There are embraces. And at the centre of it all stands Con Theocharides – hugging every single person who steps forward.
Not shaking hands. Hugging.
“Whatever we receive, we give,” Con says simply.
It is not a slogan. It is the quiet rule by which he and his wife, Cathy, live.
A moment that changed everything
Although A Touch of Kindness was formally established in 2022, its roots stretch back much further.
In 2007, Con was running a small chicken shop in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. Business was tight. Stress was high. One early morning delivery took him through Woolloomooloo and Kings Cross. As he drove through the back streets, he saw people sleeping rough – huddled in parks, wrapped in blankets, living in full view yet somehow unseen.
He sat in his car and wept.
“I was speaking to God,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Is this all you want from me or do you want more?’ And the voice came to me and said, ‘No, you need to do more.’”
The next day, he set aside barbecued chickens, cooked chips, filled a box with food and returned to the same spot.
“I screamed out, ‘Boys, I’ve got some food here for you.’ I left the box on the bench and walked away,” Con explains.
When he turned back, he saw them rise – hungry, cautious, hopeful. He sat in his car and sobbed again. He went back the next night. And the next.
On the third night, a man with matted dreadlocks and a powerful stench sat up from his makeshift bed and said, “Thank you, squire, for thinking of us.”
Con pulled him up, embraced him and kissed him: “I said, ‘My brother, God loves you’.”
That was the beginning.
From private giving to public movement
For years, Con funded the feeding program himself. Slowly, word spread. Donations began appearing in envelopes.
Then in 2022, urged by his solicitor and accountant to bring transparency and structure to the growing work, Con and Cathy formalised the charity under a name that came to him one morning after some family suggestions: A Touch of Kindness.
The charity’s ethos is clear: to “connect those who are empowered to give with those less fortunate and in need of receiving” – and to do so with empathy, dignity and human connection.
Today, the organisation supports more than 500 vulnerable people each week in Sydney, operating from Martin Place as a trusted presence on the city’s streets.
Yet despite the scale, the spirit remains intimate.
“It’s authentic. It’s real. It’s raw,” Con says.
Before each service, he gathers volunteers to say the Lord’s Prayer. Then he greets every single person in the queue – often more than 150 in a night – with a hug, a kiss on the cheek, a high five.
“They wouldn’t get a hug from anyone else,” he says quietly.
Faith forged through struggle
Con’s compassion was not born from comfort.
Born in Sydney, New South Wales to parents from Limassol, Cyprus, he grew up working in his family’s fish shops from the age of eight. There were no luxuries. No safety nets. Just hard work.
He married young – 19 years old – and became a father at 21. Business pressures mounted.
“You don’t understand the meaning of suffering if you’ve never suffered,” he reflects.
It was through hardship that his Orthodox Christian faith deepened. And it is through that faith that he views every human being – not as a problem to be solved, but as a soul to be loved.
“We’re not there to judge anyone,” he insists.
A family mission
Con is quick to deflect praise.
“I’m humbled… very humbled,” he says of being shortlisted as a finalist in the inaugural Australia Cyprus Achievement Awards, which recognise Australians whose service strengthens the nation.
“A Touch of Kindness is not just me. It’s my sponsors, my volunteers, my team leaders, my family – and my wife.”
Cathy, he says, is the anchor.
“Without a good wife beside me, this would not happen,” he says.
Their home often becomes a logistical hub – chaotic, generous, alive with preparation. Their children and grandchildren are part of the journey. Con hopes that one day they will carry it forward.
“When I leave this world… maybe my grandchildren will take it further than I ever dreamed,” he says.
Beyond charity – a way of living
For Con, kindness is not an event. It is a discipline. He rises at 6am, often walking into the ocean before the city wakes.
He balances business, family and service with a mantra he repeats often: “Build memories. Love each other. Forgive each other.”
He tells his volunteers at the end of each night: “Don’t forget to hug each other.”
And when asked what comes next?
“It’s mind-boggling,” he says of the growth. “I’m already booking five months ahead. Banking teams, schools, football clubs… I don’t even know these people, and they’re coming.”
Then he adds, almost as a prayer: “Glory goes to our Lord Jesus Christ… and to my beautiful wife, Cathy, who has endured this journey with me.”
In a world often driven by visibility, Con remains disarmingly simple. He does not measure success in headlines or trophies. He measures it in hugs. In hot meals shared under city lights. In the quiet, radical belief that no one is beyond love.
And in that belief, Sydney has found something rare – a touch of kindness that refuses to run out.
